Chapter 3 - The Shadow in the Mirror
The honeymoon period at the Vance estate lasted precisely one week.
By the second week, the reality of living in Julian Vance’s world began to show its sharp, jagged edges.
It started with small things. Mrs. Gable made it her personal mission to ensure I felt out of place. She intentionally scheduled the girls' music and language tutors during my designated bonding hours, corrected my table manners in front of the kitchen staff, and made loud, passive-aggressive comments about "unqualified influences" disrupting the estate's established discipline.
I ignored her. I was from the Bronx; a passive-aggressive house manager was nothing compared to the landlords and bureaucracy I had dealt with my whole life. My focus was entirely on Abigail, Vanessa, and my mother, whose health was improving by leaps and bounds thanks to the top-tier physical therapy Julian had provided.
Then came the night of the rainstorm.
It was a Thursday, midnight. Heavy lightning flashed outside the grand windows, and thunder rattled the glass frames.
I was fast asleep in my suite when a soft, terrified whimpering woke me.
I opened my eyes to see Vanessa standing beside my bed, clutching a ragged, worn blanket, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
“Miss Victoria,” she wept quietly. “The thunder is too loud.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” I murmured, sitting up and pulling her onto the bed, wrapping the heavy duvet around her shoulders. “Come here. It’s okay. It’s just the sky making noise.”
A few seconds later, Abigail slipped through the connecting door from the nursery, looking equally pale, though she tried hard to hide it. I opened my arm to her as well, pulling both girls into a warm pile in the center of my bed.
“Where’s your mommy?” Vanessa asked suddenly, looking around my dark room.
“She’s downstairs in her room, honey,” I whispered, stroking her hair. “Sleeping.”
Vanessa rested her chin on my chest, looking up at me with enormous blue eyes. “Miss Victoria?”
“Yeah, Nessie?”
“Why don't we have a mommy?”
The question hung in the air, heavy and fragile, echoing louder than the thunder outside.
Abigail fell silent, her small body going completely rigid against my side.
I took a quiet breath, treading carefully. “Your daddy told me your mommy had to go away to heaven when you were very small.”
“She died in a car,” Abigail whispered, her voice tight and uncharacteristically adult. “Mrs. Gable said Mommy was beautiful and perfect, and that nobody can ever replace her.”
My heart twisted painfully. Mrs. Gable. The woman had been feeding these young children a narrative of unattainable perfection, trapping them in a cycle of grief that kept them distant from anyone who tried to love them.
“Your mommy was special, Abby,” I said softly, holding both of them tighter. “And nobody ever needs to replace her. Love doesn't work like that. Love just grows bigger so there’s room for more people.”
“Do you love us, Miss Victoria?” Vanessa asked, her voice sleep-heavy and innocent.
I pressed a kiss to the top of her golden head. “With all my heart, sweetie.”
“Then can we call you Mommy?” Vanessa asked softly. “Just sometimes? When we’re scared?”
I froze. My breath caught in my throat. The sheer weight of that request—the absolute, fragile trust wrapped up in that simple word—terrified me. I thought of Julian, of his fierce protectiveness, of the ghost of his late wife hanging over this house.
Before I could answer, a shadow moved in the doorway.
Julian was standing there.
He was wearing a dark gray henley shirt and black trousers, his hair messy from sleep. He had come to check on the girls because of the storm. He had heard every single word.
The room went deathly quiet. Thunder cracked outside, illuminating Julian’s face in a flash of stark, white light. His expression was completely indecipherable—a dark storm of grief, shock, and something raw that he couldn't hide.
“Girls,” Julian said, his voice quiet, low, and raspy. “Back to your beds.”
Abigail and Vanessa instantly scrambled off my bed, terrified they had done something wrong.
“Daddy, don't be mad at Miss Victoria!” Abigail pleaded, stepping between us. “I asked her!”
“I am not mad, Abigail,” Julian said, though his tone was so rigid it sounded like steel under stress. “Go to your room. Now.”
The girls scurried through the connecting door, closing it softly behind them.
I stood up from the bed, pulling my robe around my shoulders, preparing myself for the inevitable explosion.
Julian walked slowly into my room. He stopped near the edge of the rug, looking at me through the dim light.
“Her name was Claire,” Julian said quietly, his voice hollow.
I blinked, caught off guard. “What?”
“My wife. Her name was Claire,” Julian repeated, staring out the balcony window at the pouring rain. “She was twenty-nine when she died. A drunk driver crossed the median on the I-95 while she was coming home from a charity gala.”
I felt a wave of profound sorrow crash over me. “Julian... I’m so sorry.”
“She was perfect,” Julian continued, his voice lacking all emotion, like a man reciting a police report to deaden the pain. “She came from old money. She managed four foundations. She held dinner parties for ambassadors. She never had a hair out of place. She never yelled. She never got flour on her clothes.”
He turned his gray eyes onto me. They were burning with an intense, agonizing conflict.
“And for three years,” Julian whispered, “this house has been a mausoleum to her memory. Mrs. Gable made sure of it. The guards made sure of it. I made sure of it.”
He stepped closer to me—so close I could feel the heat radiating off his body, smell the faint scent of rain and cedarwood on his skin.
“And then you walked onto Park Avenue in a dirty cleaning uniform,” Julian rasped, reaching out his hand, his knuckles hovering just inches from my cheek, trembling slightly before he dropped his hand back to his side. “You bought my daughters six dollars worth of popcorn, you told me off in front of my own security, and in two weeks, you’ve brought more life into this house than Claire ever did in five years.”
I stared at him, my heart hammering against my ribs, terrified by the raw honesty spilling out of the untouchable billionaire.
“Julian...” I breathed.
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“Don't let them call you Mommy, Victoria,” Julian whispered, his voice cracking slightly. “Not because I’m angry. But because if you teach them to love you... and then you leave us... it will kill them. It will kill all of us.”
He turned on his heel and walked out of my room, leaving me standing alone in the dark, listening to the rain beat against the glass.
